Held back, with a knack for spectacle,
A need to be, specifically, to be beheld.
A paradoxical existence –
An oxymoronic persistence,
An urge to merge unsuppressed emotion with the notion of defensive insistence.

There ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone, indeed;
I paint these scenes with fine lines in my mind’s eye’s canvas,
The thought of you floats through like the haze of cannabis,
You are the source of that which I seek, thou art the seed.

I attempt to gaze deeply, as I love to do,
Yet I cannot do so unfazed, it is a price I pay steeply,
For sadness overwhelms me, leaving me blue.
Instead, I cast myself in a lifetime of debauchery,
Each and every night hoping it’ll be the one that does one in,
That one night it’ll be too much, too out of the ordinary.

Forgive me for making promises I can’t keep –
I guess I am a grown man when I can no longer weep,
When tears have dried out a long time ago,
When pain sears memories that died like an ember’s last glow.

I want to be able to just be inactive emotionally,
To respect boundaries reflective of love that is felt platonically.
I am capable of doing that just about as much as a bull is able to tip-toe around a china shop.

Ħadna buzz.
Fawra tespandi.
Jien u int.

*     *     *
(in English)

We had fun.
Steam, growing in size.
You and me.

I am so ******* done.
I am now a loaded gun,
So you’d better ******* run.
I am hateful, like a forsaken son,
I am spiteful, like the blazing sun.

An appetite for self-destruction,
Akin to handling dynamite without any instructions.
The chaotic disorder that runs amok,
The scavenging hoarder pillaging dead schmucks.
This language is those dark corners left unilluminated by love,
A savage from unknown lands coming over the ridge,
That unsated, insane impulse that turns push into shove.

Throbbing veins and demonic thoughts,
Sobbing dames and manic frauds.
Your mental kingdom, your palace of peace –
It all falls apart, piece-by-piece.
Hate is like a saboteur, sneaking in,
It robs life of its grandeur, sinking its teeth in.

Rhythm just doesn’t happen,
You feel stricken, like you’re borderline bed-ridden,
Feeling as used as a ***** napkin.
You see hate in every pair of dead eyes,
In every new set of ******* lies,
Whenever another inner child dies,
Whenever another bomb-dropping jet flies.

We have two languages, in this life –
The language of love, and the language of hate.
Which one do you want to speak?
Which realm do you seek?
Choose wisely;
Mistakes are not taken very kindly.

The pen and the paper;
Like a pensieve for my memories,
So I can ponder them later.
For the thoughtful and the pensive,
For minds fraught full of traps and defences.

I pour my heart and soul into these lines,
With no goal except to make art that’s sublime.
I fiddle with rhythm with methodical precision,
I riddle your mind and meddle with it,
Like your doctor’s prescription.

All I want is for you to listen,
To digest my thoughts, to make an acquisition.
Reject it, hate it if you must,
Denigrate it, fulfil your bloodlust!

But, I implore you, do not ignore it.
Explore my mind forevermore if you wish,
Or store it for another day if you plan on giving it a miss.
Just acknowledge this:
I don’t want to be a poet who dies in obscurity.
I want to reach out now, to taste of human unity.
I don’t want to just die for what I stand for;
I want to live, so give me an encore.

Please, PLEASE -
Grant me this release.
From the burdens of this reality
I would like to be freed.
These lines are something I want you to read
Before it's too late.
To your hearts, I capitulate,
To your minds, I delegate,
To your souls, I supplicate -
LISTEN.

Not all of us can cry it out loud,
Or effortlessly open up.
Not all of us are gifted
With an endlessly-flowing cup.
Many of us
Struggle to survive;
If you're lucky, you might have a 9-to-5
Maybe even have time to be alive,
And not just exist.

But, that is not enough -
We have a world that is rough,
Where millions die every year,
Where people hold bodies that were once dear.
Look at ourselves;
Those who are sheltered from the storm
Lie in its deceitful eye,
Incapable of understanding beyond their norm.

We are wearing blinders,
And have plugged out the noise, too;
If I were you,
The next time someone needs help,
I would listen to everything,
Through and through.

This one is for the broken, the beaten and the ******;
All the people that were persecuted and attacked.
All the slaves and migrants
Lining the floor of the sea.
All the men, women and children
Who died trying to be free.
This one
Is for those who toil and hustle
Without any hope for improvement -
Fragmented we are powerless,
Together we are a movement.

Frozen in place I stood,
A deer caught in a hunter’s crosshair.
I never thought you would,
But you did; you killed me, right there.

I am angry at myself, most of all;
For staying when I should have left,
For not dodging the bullet and taking the fall.
Twice now, I found myself broken;
Carelessly adrift in life,
Like a raft on the ocean.
Too much pain this chest,
These monsters in my head
Feel like an obstacle I cannot best.

I don’t just want to be loved;
I want us all to love and understand one another.
‘It’s not possible, we’re too different,’
Those who wish to rebuttal will answer.
No, that is the distant path you chose,
I choose to keep my humanity close.

And yet, I cannot stop the terrifying flashbacks.
You made me feel like a train veering off its tracks.
Like a bridge that leads to a precipice,
Nothing but a cold, dark abyss.
Meet the millennials -
The most criticised generation,
Suffering from emotional stagnation,
Raised on a steady diet of instant gratification.

‘What do you want, then?’
I want us to feel the soil with our bare feet.
To associate freely with others we meet,
Not bow down to the pretension of the elite.
To embrace our soul,
Not shun it and drive it into a locked room;
To retrace our role,
Not simply run our life’s course to its doom.

We are being led astray,
Our hopes and dreams hidden away.
We have no room for thought, little to say,
For few want to go out of their way.
No criticism, no originality -
No witticism, no vitality.
We are criticised for criticising,
And we are ostracised when we act defying.

We are the paralysed;
Our fears leave us immobilised,
Anxiety and depression,
Killing variety of expression.
We languish in prisons
That we build for ourselves in our own head;
We have nightmarish visions,
Like a guild of the living dead.

Rusted handcuffs leave their mark,
Your wrists are chafed, coarse and stained dark.
You are used to light sneaking in through your cage’s bars,
Knees bent in adulation for kings and tsars –
A prison built for us in our hollowed-out minds,
A life lived with shuttered doors and closed blinds.

The handcuffs are our perceived obligations,
Our possessions and designated work stations.
The cell’s cold bars
Are not made of steel and enforced laws,
But of fear and hate, our biggest flaws.
Fear of ostracisation,
Hatred of those from another nation,
Fear of being downtrodden,
Hatred over differences that weren’t chosen,
But were simply there.

We are afraid of making waves or changes,
Stuck to a routine like slaves throughout the ages.
Our way of life has broken our spirit –
We are drunk with luxury, and we’ve imbibed over the limit.
We are afraid of looking at the mirror sometimes;
Afraid of eyes that stare back blankly,
Terrified of looking at this world honestly and frankly.

Do you wish to be liberated?
Do you wish to stop suffering because of this hatred?
Would you like to see
A world full of people that are brave and free?
Then here’s the point that matters most;
If you wish to live without restriction and not like a ghost,
Then these mental chains you must break.
When you realise that freedom is the only thing that matters,
The illusion stops being real, the matrix shatters.

If you hold back because you’re afraid of prosecution,
What’s the point of going about your day,
When your right to speak freely has already had its day of execution?
If you do not work on what you feel is right,
What’s the point of dreaming of a future that is bright?
If you’re in a system where your ideas and desires are impossible,
Where dreams and aspirations are rendered implausible,
Then is it a life worth living?

Do you wish to die having lived for someone else’s greed?
Do you wish to spend your days watching the world around us bleed?
If that is not your wish, then do not forget;
The greatest power at their disposal is your fear and regret.
We are here for a very short time –
To attempt to unfuck humanity is a long, difficult, climb
But this is how we begin.
We must find strength from within,
Admit that our life is unsustainable,
Living for impossible standards that are unattainable.

We must search for our lost roots, our core;
You will not find happiness or peace in the next clothing store,
For it is a journey of letting things go.
It is a journey leading to a truth which you already know –
When you are no longer terrified,
When your faith in yourself you have solidified,
When these beliefs you have internalised,
Then you will suffer no longer.

Doubt and turmoil will cease,
For you are now carrying the flag of peace.
People shouldn’t be afraid of their governments;
Governments should be afraid of their people,
For a global awakening is happening
And we are sick to the core of all this evil.

If the unadulterated truth is on your side,
Although it may take years of swimming against the tide,
Your actions WILL bear fruit,
Maybe not in a month, maybe not even a decade,
But it’s a journey worth pursuing, a life as a renegade.
We are in this mess
Because old men sent young people to die for them in wars –
Now it’s time to reverse the course,
And learn how to think and fight on your own,
Before it’s too late and we’re all kneeling
In front of some *******’s throne.

Gone, as quickly as it came
The spark that lit the flame
Briefly flickering into existence
An abrupt campfire of warmth
In the Ice Age of my heart –
A bolt from the blue
An arrow that struck true,
With the kind of aim that makes Cupid look like a silly amateur.

A battlefield of heartbreak –
Amidst all the chaos
In the din and clashing of steel upon steel
I felt like I’d found refuge
In the folds of your arms.
Foolish, unaware
Of how selfish I was being
Of how unwholesome I am
Of how chaotic it is
To be with someone like me;
I hope that now that you are free
You are able to see
That I never meant any harm,
That maybe if given more time
Our love could have blossomed
Like a well-kept farm.

I realise now
That I was blind, careless
Both with words and actions, I was reckless
You gave more than you received
And because of that, you felt deceived
My attempts
At being a supplicant at the feet of your heart’s throne
Came too little, too late
And once more, I find myself alone.

Maybe
If and when
If only I’d seen it then
You really, actually tried
Instead
I took you along for a ride
Without considering your needs and wants.

A part of me is glad
That for a moment, love was something we had
Until my lack of attention, my lack of care
Made you feel like a ballroom that was once beautiful
But has now been stripped bare.
Another part of me
Is vitriolic with self-distaste
In my haste
I wanted you to be a part of me
Whilst not realising
That I wasn’t trying to be a part of you.

I’m sorry
For not realising how left out I made you feel
I am a walking, sentient horror reel
I wanted you to be a part of me
Yet instead of realising it goes both ways
I tried to uproot you like a tree
That just had the misfortune of encountering a hurricane.

Once more, it’s time to grieve
I don’t want you to leave
But I can’t force you to stay, either.
Your soul with mine
Felt like fuel meeting the spark of a lighter
And now
Now that I’ve used up all that I had
I realise we were in the Garden of Eden
Until I let it all turn bad.

I hope that one day
We might meet again
Reminisce over the good times
Remember how intensely it all began
And maybe
I’ll be able to show you
That I’m not just full of it
That bit by bit
We might have had something great
Had I not been consumed by this hate,
This hate for the world around me
This inability to be there for you
And not just for myself.

Why?
Why does the homeless man starve?
Why am I stuck, hungry and alone
In this niche I’m trying to carve?

Why?
Why does the world avoid acknowledging reason?
Why is the thinker ostracised,
Nay, persecuted, like a rebel hung for treason?

Why?
Why does the neurotic partner abuse the other?
Why do we lose our ****
And become violent like a wife-beating, drunken father?

Why?
Why do we poison ourselves?
Why do we smoke, snort, shoot up and drink?
Why do we abuse our temple,
Like a supernova’s collapse, on the brink
Of wiping out us
And everything around us.

If I had to answer
All of these burning questions
I could do so with one stroke,
No concessions;
We are purposeless and disconnected.
We are infected,
A sickness that eats one on the inside
Like an ingestion of bisulphide –
This sickness I speak of
Is a sickness of the mind and the heart;
It is the reason for dying art
The reason everything feels
Like we’re on our way to hell on an express cart.

This greed, this marauder of souls
Swallowing us all, we become
Sentient, wandering, black holes
Destined
To consume everything.
Trying to fill up the void
The one on the inside,
The one that has destroyed
Our sense of communal love.

This anxiety, this harbinger of malevolence
Even in benevolence
It finds a way to ruin things.
It can befall even the greatest of all,
No one is immune, not even kings.
Anxiety
Is the culmination of our fears
It is a beast that will leave you in tears
It is rooted
In our fear of the unknown
This terror
Of setting out, alone.

Alone, we are afraid.
Greed
Is easier to fulfil
It is far easier
To harbour ill will
To shoot and ****
To hunt down, to chase the thrill
Of feeling superior.

Together?
Together,
Our planet, our lives,
Everything can be better.

PART III: THE LOCKED DOOR

The straw that broke the camel’s back.
The lethal blow that made his resilience crack.
Think, analyse the commensurate reaction to his fate;
Paralysed and desperate, in his own words.

‘Asphyxiated’ seems like such a clean word;
‘He died of asphyxiation,’ that’s what the articles wrote.
What about dying of starvation? Let me elaborate on this note –
I meant, dying from being starved of hope.
I hardly think one ‘asphyxiating’ does this justice.
How about ‘a sense of debilitating hopelessness’, instead?
Or maybe ‘hopelessness that feels like all-encompassing dread?’

Because that’s what all of Gaza feels right now.
How? How the **** did we get here?
Year after year, Palestinians die and suffer.
Fear after fear, they come alive, one after the other.
‘We’re dead, already’ –
How does reading something like that not make you feel unsteady?

So, what do you do after suffering like that?
Nothing, except for lying down flat on your bed,
Crying, watching everybody around you dying.
And then, when you can’t cry anymore,
When you realise your entire country was treated like an eye sore,
When you can’t take it anymore,
That’s when you lock the ******* door.
That’s when Asma broke through that door,
To find her prodigal son dead, collapsed on the floor.

Stricken-down, struggling and stranded,
Dealt a hand that was quite underhanded.
I am done with never settling down,
Always having to run –
I am standing my ground stubbornly,
I am a storm of sounds,
Discourteously curmudgeonly.

I will not accept defeat -
I feel naught except the beat,
The rhythm, the flow, the show –
The hurt dissipates as I let go.
On these two feet,
I fight the finite, finicky, fraudulent conmen of deceit.
It’ll serve you right when you get roasted by the roaring heat,
When mother death cometh with hungry babes at her ****.

Stranded or at ease, it doesn’t matter,
Landed like a breeze, serving poetry on a platter.
I’ve been feeling like my time is really up,
Like there’s the ceiling and all I can do is get numb.
That, or just ******* wander off and die;
Just like that, with no explanation as to how or why.

I can’t go on like this, I can’t blow off life’s bliss.
Thing is, if I knew I was going to die and live on somewhere else,
I can’t even think of what I’d actually miss.

A wide-eyed kid, aged nineteen;
Bottled rage, a kind unseen.
Then, a sudden light beam burst forth;
Like it was a song of ice and fire,
And the Mad Queen met the ******* of the North.

I was killing myself with drugs and *****;
I still am. But, back then,
I was permanently binging.
I had nothing to lose;
I was a soul running loose,
With no clues about all these blues.
Short-fused and self-abused,
And extremely ******* confused.

But then, she showed up;
I hesitantly slowed down.
I was a mine about to blow up,
Whilst she upturned my frown.
At least, that’s what happened, for a while;
It wasn’t long before vitriol and bile.

We were living wild, all functional survival.
Sharing shelter with a woman who was vile;
A mother twisted and snarled up with hate,
A completely ****** up fate complementing a ****** up life.

Somehow, amid the *****, unwashed dishes,
The stench of alcoholism and all the hitches,
The sting of a mother ignoring a daughter’s wishes,
This was when we were the happiest together.
We had nobody, nothing, except for each other.

Bonding over an enemy in common;
Us against the world, baby.
I felt like an angel had been summoned;
I thought I’d won the golden ticket,
Until I realised the paper was laced with a tracer of poison,
And we were getting sickened.

But, during that first year, we were alright;
Hell was around us, but not inside us.
Walking through fire, but not set alight.
We held on; for each other, we went soft,
Like I was Indiana Jones, and you were Lara Croft.

We struggled, we survived, although we never thrived.
We lost everyone around us; remember how I cried?
Our friends, gone with the wind,
They dropped us, or we dropped them,
Like a benefit one rescinds.

We clawed our way out of that black hole,
Said goodbye to the drunk skunk on the couch,
A merry day to get away from that blackened soul.
We had no plans, no real goals;
We were just running away,
And starting anew on our own.

Filled with hope, so open to the world;
So naïve, believing we’d be able to cope.
We’d give it a whirl, we said, holding one another’s hand.
We were lost, like wayward, wind-strewn grains of sand.
But, somehow, we slept fondly in each other’s arms,
Disarmed wholly by each other’s charms.
I loved you, and never wished you any harm.
I gave you all I had and all I knew;
I wish it was enough to get us through.

Haunted, yet I am undaunted;
Infuriated by this world we created.
One drink turns into seven,
On the brink as the world burns,
Denied entrance at the gates of Heaven.

I close my eyes, but my mind’s eye still sees –
I chose to stifle my cries, part the seas of tears,
To stand when I wanted to fall on my knees.
‘You’ left a poisonous aftertaste,
Truly, a treasonous exit, made in haste.
I was in pain, with nothing to gain,
Like a dragon in chains waiting to be slain.

Now, as I spread my scaly wings,
As I light a fire in my belly,
Blow out smoke in rings,
There still are a few things I want to say.
Every thought of ‘You’ brings dismay,
A memory that still rots and decays.

Ingrained inside my library of perceptions,
Stained all over my heart,
A long catalogue of assorted deceptions.
I know every new day is easier,
For life is but a spark and a show,
And a fresh dawn just marks the next tier;
Yet, sorrow on every morrow follows like a pet.
One day…
One day, I will forget.
I’ll fill my cup with joy,
And drain it of regret.

The bitterness of hate and disappointment.
The hollowness of state appointments,
The shallowness of reform,
Like an anti-aging ointment.

Hidden histories, systems built on blood –
Forbidden mysteries, bodies of martyrs,
Unmarked graves covered in mud.
I understand, now – fully self-aware,
To talk is not enough; to do, we must dare.

No government is better than the self-governed.
Remember; the betterment of society must happen now,
Before we ruin ourselves, to be later discovered.
Remember that the rich have always been afraid;
Remember their long-standing debt that is yet to be paid.

Retribution is within reach;
Landlords, puppets and their armed thugs,
Parasites with no contributions, akin to a leech.
Warlords and their muppets, ***** profiteers,
Genocidal crimes, no restitution, just greed.

You may have killed off most of us,
But you will never **** the black flag.
You will simply make more of us,
For surrender to your ill-will is never our plan.
For every ‘example’ you make out of us,
We’ll just keep on coming back.

We are the anarchists,
The nightmare you’ve tried to bury.
Down with rich masochists,
Let righteous fury tear apart their territory!

Greet every person you meet;
Embrace warmly, enjoy the heat.
Savour their company, taste their flavour;
You’ll know if it’s golden or rotten,
If you’re holding a gold mine,
Or a poison ill-begotten.

Maybe, not at first;
It’s hard to tell, sometimes,
For some are like chameleons.
Blending in when they have to,
When their plan is to trap you.
Prepare to be encapsulated,
To have your energy castrated.

Eventually, though, things change;
We are able to tell, most times.
Even if we must go against the grain,
Feel the pain of the Milesians.
Your gut instinct will tell you,
Let you know you should change the tune,
Hell, maybe even change the venue.

It is an act of aggression to abuse someone’s affection.
There should be no digression here,
I shall not allow any concession, not in this lifetime, nor the next,
I will make sure of that, I need nor context nor pretext.
If you do feel abused, rejected and refused,
Then taken back to be re-used,
You might have a leech attached to you;
You might have to bleed to feed someone who’s attacked you.

If you feel like something’s wrong,
Stop, and reflect; what’s going on?
Inspect the nature of the relationship,
Critically analyse your companionship.

You must trust your fellow man;
But, in these times, you must also verify.
Make sure your mind’s gun doesn’t rust;
In these times, people hide behind their alibis.

Seems wrong, feels right;
Feels like longing, seems like it’s alright.
Like it’s alright to ignore sentiment,
Despite my heart being set alight,
Intensely bright, incandescent.

Rationality, grounded in reality –
In opposition,
Spirituality, grounded in alacrity.
When these two are bound together,
We drift through life peacefully, light as a feather.
When these two oppose each other,
Then we must compose ourselves, or otherwise suffer.

There is so much our two eyes cannot see;
It’s the third one that really sets you free.
When internal conflict arises,
When infernal flames contract your irises,
Know that on the inside,
Deep in your heart, where you cannot hide,
Know that you know what’s right.

It might seem irrational,
It might feel insane;
It might be unfashionable,
It might even sound lame –
Your decision is only limited by you,
The perspective which is your frame.

Listen to your heart’s hidden chambers;
Turn its volume up, like your annoying neighbours.
Let your soul speak;
For our lives are not long,
And the future seems rather bleak.

Ġrieħi miftuħin,
Xejn ma jrid jingħalaq.
Suppost, il-ġnus maqgħuda,
Iżda lkoll qegħdin mifruxin,
Donnu, xejn ma jrid jiċċaqlaq.

Feriti ifferoċjati bil-melħ,
Kruċjati, bla ebda sens ta’ ferħ.
U l-imħabba għal proxxmu -
Dik x’sar minnha?
Issa sibna x-xoqqa f’moxta;
Ħlifna, bit-tarf ta’ din il-pinna,
Naslu għal verità, naraw x’insarrfu minnha.

Allura, x’inhi din il-verità?
Qiegħed nassumi li hekk qegħdin tistaqsu.
M’hemmx dibattitu, ir-realtà turik,
Kollox f’ħinu, kollox f’waqtu.
Ir-risposta tiegħi hija din;
Tlifna kull sens ta’ valur,
Tlifna kull sens ta’ twemmin.

M’għadniex nemmu fil-valur tal-ħajja ta’ kullħadd.
M’għadniex nemmnu li kull azzjoni għanda impatt.
Nemmu li aħna progressivi, u Ewropej;
Jekk vera nemmnu hekk,
Lesti nħallsu għall-eċċessi u d-dejn?
Mhux dejn fiskali, iżda dejn immortali,
Id-dejn tad-demm li xxerred,
Dejn is-sudditti, dejn l-iskjavi.

In fatti, is-superjorità materjali ġejja minn hekk;
Mill-gwerer tas-slaten, u l-gideb ta’ dawn tal-ġlekk.
Daħħalna xafra disa’ pulzieri ‘il ġewwa,
Biex imbagħad ħriġniha sitta ‘il barra;
Ta’ parsi għandna l-ugwaljanza,
Għax issa jsawtuk xorta, iżda b’aktar ħlewwa.

Qabel, kellna l-ktajjen u l-forza brutali.
Issa, għandna l-kuntratti, u l-kodiċi penali,
Bil-banek jirrenjaw,
Bil-gvernijiet korporazzjonijiet statali.
Mhux ha nitlobkom temmnuni -
Nitlobkom biss teżaminaw il-fatti.
M’għandix spag x’jiġbduli;
Il-kuxjenza nadifa,
U m’għandix gideb x’ngħatti.

_______

’Open wounds’

Open wounds;
They aren’t closing.
Nations should be united,
But we are far apart,
Seems like nothing wants to budge.

Wounds, seasoned with salt,
Crucibles, with no sense of joy.
And, about that love for one’s fellow man -
What happened to that?
Now, we’ve found the perfect moment;
We’ve sworn, with the tip of this pen,
(that) We’ll get to the truth,
See what we can make of it.

So; what is the truth?
I am assuming that’s what you’re asking.
There’s no debate, reality shows you,
In due time and place, in the right moment.
My answer is this -
We’ve lost all our sense of valour,
We’ve lost all our sense of belief.

We no longer believe in the value of everyone’s life.
We no longer believe every action impacts others.
We believe that we are progressive, and European;
If we do believe that,
Are we ready to pay back our excesses and debts?
This is not fiscal debt, but rather an immortal one,
The debt of the blood that has been shed,
The debt of subjects and slaves.

In fact, material superiority stems from this;
From the wars of lords and the lies of the suits.
We’ve pushed a blade nine inches inward,
And pushed it six inches outward;
Pretending we have equality,
Just because now, they’ll still beat you, but more sweetly, more subtly.

Before, we had chains and brute force.
Now, we have contracts, and the penal code,
With banks reigning supreme,
With governments who are now state corporations.
I am not asking you to believe me -
I am asking you to examine the facts.
I have no strings, none that can be pulled;
My conscience is clean,
And I have no lies to cover up.

The last, few drops of beer;
You tilt the glass back,
It now becomes clear.
You step off the bar stool,
As drunk as a czar’s fool.
Your mouth tastes like a graveyard;
****, has walking always been this hard?

You find your way home, somehow.
Balance and vision are now impaired;
****, is there somewhere I can get my liver repaired?
It’s now a challenge to get to the kitchen.
You’re in no position to think,
So you just sit there and pour another drink.
At those minutes turning to hours on your clock, you stared.
For this life, you realise you were not prepared.

You shuffle and scuffle your way to the couch;
You stumble, your stomach starts to grumble.
This is the moment, the solemn promise;
You swear you will never dare do this again.
You tear at your hair in drunken throes,
In the late hours of the night,
Hopelessly trying to shed your woes.

You wake up on the morrow,
A pitiful mixture of regret and sorrow.
Your hangover follows you around like a faithful hound,
You feel like your soul has been hollowed out.
You swear once more, ‘that was my last beer;’
But, we both know, you’re far from being in the clear.

The white flag has been raised.
The earth lies scorched and blazed;
Medals were pinned on chests,
Testament to the best murderers,
Killers being given glory and praise.

The war is finally over.
Go home, soldier.
Pick up the hammer and the nail,
For houses have been torn down –
Bombs have fallen like rain, explosive gales.

Now, the bridges must be rebuilt;
Lost hopes must be found,
Somewhere in the debris and guilt.
POWs must be returned safe and sound,
The world must continue to spin, at a tilt.

Bridges can be rebuilt, yes,
But imagine if we tried to not burn them down, at all.
Empty cups can be refilled,
But imagine if we never dried them out, how we’d all stand tall.

If we always choose war,
We shall never know peace.
If we always even the score,
We shall sire desperate pleas.

Exasperated.
Feelings that have been exacerbated;
Grinding each other, tectonic plates
Shaking the world itself,
Sliding past each other like bolts in gates.
Despair weaves its cobwebs around me,
My hunched figure is immobile.
Paralysed, my throat is sore and vile
Unable to speak
Unable to give you
The stability you seek.

If only I could stand
Shake off the silky threads
Reach out across this vast expanse
Of failed attempts and regrets
Of poor judgement,
Of ignoring things that were incumbent.
If only
I could reach out
Make you see through my eyes
Feel beneath my skin
I would be able to show you
That it wasn’t a mistake to let me in.

You would feel
This anger I have, hard as steel
This growling, hungry lion
This snarling shade of Orion.
You would feel how I am a volatile substance
How a trail of corroded bonds lies on my conscience
How heavy my heart feels
How badly it mends and eventually heals.
A crooked, misshaped *****
Sometimes functional and happy
Sometimes made of stone, cast under the eye of a Gorgon.

Forgive me
I have tried
Within me, it seems something has withered and died.
Maybe I will get to see you
One day, after the clock’s heavy hands do slide
After experience teaches me more
After I find peace within myself,
After my heart stops being sore.
Maybe,
I will be able to serenade and thrill your soul
Maybe,
We will share ourselves again,
Make building our life together our goal.
Or
This frozen world
I shall wander alone,
Of this pain and suffering
I shall forge an iron throne
And be the ruler of myself.
Be wary
Of a king whose subjects are his own reflections;
For every decision shall be the consequence of a war of thoughts.

When I die, I hope none of you pretend you cared.
When I do die,
When my own hands seal that goodbye,
Don’t act like you don’t know why.
Don’t you dare imply that it might have been a bad high,
Or that my dreams were impossible,
And that I was flying too high.
And don't you dare say 'I needed help';
No, I needed a way out of this hell,
A better life than this constant retreat into a shell.

I gave you visions for the future.
Grave expressions, co-authored by the truth;
I aimed for your soul like a range target from a booth.
You may not see it, but I do;
The gap between what is, and what could be,
Like comparing a gas lamp with a radiant star’s energy.

It eats up my happiness from inside,
Like a parasite stretching my intestines wide.
Many of you don’t ******* care, in actuality –
Some of you just want the fame, in reality,
To get your tasteless name ahead in a winner less game.

You wouldn’t understand revolution if it sat on your face,
Hell, you wouldn’t if you slept with it, reproduced,
And created a whole new pseudo-race.
We’re so far up our own *****,
We could basically regurgitate ourselves –
I’m just the guy giving you reality,
Getting the truth off those dusty shelves.

Don’t act like you knew me if you really didn’t;
You chose to turn away, when I wanted you to see right through me.
Don’t think of the good times we had;
Think of all the nights spent discussing the sad and the mad,
The broken and the beaten,
The stolen lives and the reasons we misbehave,
Like a heathen in the Garden of Eden.
That’s what I would want you to think about.
And before you cry and mourn,
Think about why, and learn.

Or, just move on, after I’m gone.
I won’t ******* care either way,
Just as long as I can stay away –
So this darkness can cease,
And my soul can see the light of day.

Smitten by her charms,
Driven by a desire to have her in my arms.
Here I am again, with a paper and a pen -
My thoughts are devouring each other,
Like walking into a crazed lions' den.

I don't know what else to do;
I have been wrong before,
I have been left wanting more -
But, I can't deny there's something true,
Something real and deep,
Beyond trivial, the stuff of dreams.

I wake up, and I see an imprint of that gorgeous face,
That bright smile that could illuminate the darkness of space.
It's killing me, knowing that this is not happening.
I'm willing to move on, I know I have to,
Yet I am too busy reeling from this crash landing,
From realising that all I want is to hug you,
And hold on for dear life.

I am yearning for you,
But life has deemed I must not;
Our journeys must take us where we are due,
And evidently, what I want is not what I got.
I wish I could explain this urgency -
It feels like a need greater than myself,
Like the call for help in a national emergency.
My thoughts call out for respite,
Yet you override them like an insurgency.

Please, don't get me wrong;
I don't want to stifle a spirit that's so free, so strong.
Just know that should I ever set foot in your sanctuary,
I will leave offerings and heap up blessings,
I will be there, even in the bitter cold of January.

I just wish you felt this as fully and fiercely,
I wish we were just dancing with destiny,
That our lives found a way to intertwine truly and sincerely.
But,
I guess they won't.

I am incomplete.
The great desolation.
Filthy desecration.
A heart’s laceration.

I dream of war, I wish for love.
Send a sign from heavens above;
What must I do?
Must I tear off the velvet glove?
Should I just give my heart a shove?
Just push it, onto life’s dance floor,
Act like I’ll live forevermore.
What must I do?
Must I willingly close that door?
Should I not think of love, anymore?

Someone’s missing, I can feel it.
Hearts must love, I can’t conceal it.
I wonder who that someone is;
In this world of state-run showbiz,
Are there any as angry as me?
Listen, hand each other the key,
Hear and understand to be free.

I hope she’s out there, somewhere.
I hope she’s running with her feet bare,
Freely, without a ******* care.

_____________

I hope wherever you are,
Whatever you’ve done,
Know that I’m sorry I wasn’t the right one.
We almost killed each other,
Became hateful, when we were once lovers.

I don’t want to write this,
I don’t want you to read it;
Part of me still feels you don’t deserve it,
Yet here it is –
I’m sorry for making my issues yours,
For the forest’s worth of used tissues,
For the days of unrest, weeping on the floor.

I hope you’re happy,
Because I know you weren’t.
It was apparent and evident, I chose not to see it;
Selfish needs and the wrong words acted as intermediates,
I wasn’t really there, I shouldn’t have been.
I was recovering, and I was still weak and lean.
Silently uttering, when all I wanted was to scream.

Maybe one day we’ll forgive one another,
Until then, I think you know who this is.
I was passing by and I just wrote this,
Sorry for the bother.

* * *

This is not an attempt to rekindle a catastrophe,
This is quite simply an overdue apology.
I’m not accepting all the blame, either;
Excepting the shame I felt for letting you get into my head,
I have become stronger and wiser,
And I wish to use this wisdom to make the world brighter.

I’m in your street because I’m publishing a book,
Or at least trying to;
Not that poetry ever meant that much to you.
But, it has brought me and my thoughts here again,
To the times where our fights were not a matter of if,
But when.

I have found it very hard to love again;
After ‘You’, anxiety killed me, made me upend,
Upend everything, a bevvy of sick feelings,
Memories of every time we had each other begging and kneeling.
I’m still in the process of healing,
This is my way of doing that,
Coping and healing.
I hope you found yours.

_______________

The world’s first, major corporation,
Architects of the enslavement of entire nations.
Shedding blood in the name of God;
Never has there been a greater fraud.

The Catholic church in Malta has held hegemony for more than 2,000 years.
They have nurtured moral subjugation in my country,
Even though the end of their shabby, crumbling reign nears.
Like us, there were many others;
Global sisters, brothers, fathers and mothers,
Ripped apart from each other and forced to suffer.

Who knows how many brilliant minds sizzled at a stake?
Who knows how many resilient cultures fizzled away?
Eradicated, dissolved like a stain –
The house of God, built on a sacrificial altar of pain.

Hidden hands seizing lands,
Forbidden acts, thieving bands,
Bands of God-awful sacks of ****,
The kind with souls so blackened with grit,
They wouldn’t even burn in their own version of Hell,
Mostly because Satan wouldn’t want to deal with that awful smell.

I hope you’re resting well,
Living swell in the Vatican –
We are going to burn it down,
Vengeful like an enslaved African.

Brain-powered brutes; kings of intellectual pursuits,
Vastly superior, sadly divorced from our roots.
Propelled to be upheld as the peak of all life;
The human species, as sharp as a corsair’s knife.

There’s about 80 billion neurons in your noggin,
Networks, working all day until you lie in a coffin.
Brain and spine; co-ordination, perfection, divine.
Plainly sublime, an observation of gifts we’re assigned.

Whether it’s seeing a sunset in the arms of your new love,
Or hearing thunder as it claps from heavens above;
Whether it’s embracing a friend you haven’t seen for too long,
Or smelling and tasting street food, lost in a throng;
It’s all assembled in your organic computer,
Your decoder of reality, your trouble-shooter.

That’s precisely why I don’t trust the brain blindly.
Despite its marvels, we can be deceived, wildly,
In a manner that is grotesque and unsightly.
Use your senses, but administer them wisely,
Live in reflective harmony, speak forthrightly.

And, most importantly, listen to intuition,
For it’s basically like getting divine tuition.
We know of love when we feel it inside us,
When we hold one another defiantly, and say:
“You will not divide us!”
We’re awed by thunder when its loudness strikes our soul,
Hunger gets to us when we’ve felt it as a whole;
We know how much we miss one another upon going home.

We say we’ll know it when we see it –
No; we’ll know it for sure when we feel it.

Questions swirl about in my mind’s pool;
The waters are sometimes hot, sometimes cool.
The answers always feel just out of reach,
Like life’s got plenty more lessons to teach.

Questions like: ‘Who in the hell am I?’
‘What happens after I die?’
‘Are we ever going to see world peace?
Or will we be lucky if we make it past July?’

No matter how hard I try to think,
It all feels like there’s no how or why,
Like it’s all a case of swim, or sink.
Random, chaotic determinations of fate;
What we make of it is where we can be great.
We have a say in whether our destiny meets us on time,
Or we decide to show up late.

There is no time to waste; I can hardly wait.
I have a curiosity which I can’t sate;
Unsettled and on edge is how I’d describe my mental state.
I don’t really know who I am, anymore;
I’m experiencing emotions I don’t want to explore.

I do know that I live and breathe;
I also know that I grieve and bleed,
That I have this inner drive to succeed.
I know that I care about human freedom;
I know that I’m plagued by more than a few demons.

Got skeletons in my closet,
A baggage trail that goes for miles;
Got no cash to make a deposit,
Yet I’ll never fail to make you smile,
To make you read my words like they were scripture,
Like sacred inheritance from ancient times.

I know I must be here for a reason;
My existence is just, no act of treason,
No malfeasance, no monsoon that’s out of season.
I am a node on the network, a rogue in a fugue state;
I shall oppose the nation state’s wetwork,
And I will make it disintegrate.
Either that, or I shall die trying;
For who am I,
If not a soul that’s done with crying?

The wind whistled with wistful woe.
I saw my sins written in blood, on the wall;
Spilling gin like an alcoholic flood, in an empty hall.
Tortured by demons, just going at it toe-to-toe.
My faults, my bad calls –
All the catastrophic somersaults,
And all the many falls.

Sometimes, I’ll forget to eat or sleep,
To relax and unwind, fall back to a natural beat –
All I’m here to do is bring you heat,
This series of verses that echo and repeat,
The kind that take over your soul, ergo, it concedes defeat.
I chose to neglect my needs,
I smoke my ****, go berserk with this craft,
I hone my intellect like I’m scared of being daft.
Besides myself, I have nothing left.
Inept at fitting in, not even close to adept,
Stuck in red tape like I’m buried in applications I’m filling in,
Living in this world of endless theft.

This is all I’ve got,
So I give it all I’ve got.
One chance, one shot –
Taking a soldier’s stance,
Choosing a ******’s spot.
A verbal marksman,
A thousand-yard stare –
Swinging like Tarzan,
To dream is to dare.

Thing is, pretty words and tight rhymes don’t matter,
Not when you can’t fall asleep.
‘Tis a fitting curse, writing wise lines –
No matter how clever or steep,
Nothing helps with those terrors from the deep.

The heart ache I have;
I think it finally broke me.
This rat race we made;
I think it finally choked me.
I think I’m done;
Nothing can console me.

A silence, saliently insisting on its one day of reign,
Reminding you to reflect before you act,
To think beyond what you could gain.

We look back at our ancestors,
Recalcitrant in the face of the British, the French;
We praise their heroics, remember them in feasts,
Yet still, we are divided, brawling like beasts.

Against the oppressor, we stood united;
A colonised nation, struggling for identity.
Master-less we finally became, celebrating independence;
Yet now, we have subverted to sadist deference.

Men in sharp suits and their slimy, convincing faces;
They like to think they hold all the aces,
That they can and will divide and conquer all of the planet’s open spaces.
They tell us what to think, what to feel, what to do, what to vote,
They’ll tell you when to swim or when to sink,
When to squeal and how to heal,
What is true when you don’t have a clue,
And what to quote when you want to sound profound.
They are snivelling, Rolex-wielding, aftershave-wearing ******* with an arrogant bearing,
And they have no issues with asking you about why the *******’re glaring.

So, I suppose, today there's not much choice;
There is a snarling wolf on one hand,
And an angry bear on the other.
When your choice is that bad,
Why should you even bother?

'By any means necessary', Malcolm X would say.
There seems to be no solution,
Excepting a call for armed revolution.
Anarchists and troublemakers, unite;
Time to take down the state,
Like cutting the line to a kite.

You couldn’t just shut the **** up, could you?
You just had to twist the knife a bit.
You just had to break my resolve, erode my grit.
My spirit, my soul, my blood;
Pushed to the limit, above and beyond its role,
Falling to the floor with a thud.

******* it, I only asked for one thing;
Why was it so difficult,
Like we’re going at it in a ring?
I am not even sure what to do anymore;
There is no comfort to procure, no mystic lore,
No wise knowledge to impart,
Only a furore to tear everything apart.

Do I forgive you, do I take blame?
Is there redemption, or have I a cursed name?
I am so ******* lost,
Heart motionless with frost.
Tears do not even fall,
Years or days do not matter at all.
Is this all there ******* is?
I feel like life is somewhere out there,
Out of reach like a dragon’s lair.

When you wear your mask of smiles,
Your hidden task of deceitful wiles,
Ridden with pain, concealed like classified files –
Do you wish people would just drop the act?
Or has your mask become as real as an established fact?

What could have been;
What should have been done.
What could have been seen;
What should have been shunned.

I speak to you, my rejected friends.
Take the messages failure sends.
I speak for you, for I feel the sting, too.
Maybe I should take my own advice,
Instead of spilling my guts out to you.
But, failures linger, don’t they?
They stick around like glue,
Make you not want to see the next day.

I grieve with you, my fellow renounced outcasts.
Life sometimes crumbles like houses beneath blasts.
I grieve for my own woeful misadventures,
For all of life’s haunting spectres,
The ghosts of what could have been,
The paradise that won’t let us in.

This one is for us;
All those who failed to get into the Harvards and the Yales,
All of those who wish they’d gotten better grades,
But got burnt out, instead.
All of those who haven’t made it in sports,
But whose dreams were cut short.
All of those who wished to become actors,
But found no supporters nor benefactors.
All of those who wished to chase music,
Those who have talent but couldn’t use it.

All of those who died at sea,
Stranded on a boat, trying to be free.
All of those whose heart was broken,
Whose wounds are always open.
All of those whose ideas were trashed,
Only to then be copied and rehashed.

All of those whose minds were broken,
Who danced with demons and evil unspoken.
All of those who never met their parents,
To whom life was never readily apparent.
All of those who reached for the stars,
But found their arms were too short.

This one is for us.
Stay strong, for these nights can be long.
Sing your song.
PS:
**** whoever said ‘the sky’s the limit’.
Let’s go for ‘above and beyond.’

Elbow-deep in *****;
Got nothing to lose.
An offer from hell;
I couldn’t refuse.

My brain’s out of happy chemicals;
A lifter with broken clavicles.
The air’s too thick, I can’t breathe;
Choked up by smoke and rage as it seethes.

The betrayal of our generation,
Born into destructive condemnation.
Born with a noose, tightly coiled round our necks,
Evil let loose, like a curse from a hex.

Stumbling into adulthood, dazed and confused.
Lesson number one -
If you’ve got a conscience, best leave it unused.
Binge-drinking, to refrain us from thinking.
A ship that’s sinking, eyes that are blinking,
Frantically keeping up with tear ducts,
But hey, at least you still feel something!
This heart has been seared, shut.

In fact, tears don’t fall down these cheeks, no more.
Crystallised pain; time to settle the score.
Time to take aim on those who came before,
Those who left us wastelands, a world forlorn.

No time to unwind, to let one’s guard down.
We must take back our homes, our streets, our towns,
It’s time to hang, draw and quarter these clowns.

Comrades, born with a guillotine over your head;
Step away from the edge towards which you’re being led,
Let us stop living like we’re the living dead.

Or, at least, let us die trying.
Like lifeless husks, slowly drying.
Our dreams, slowly fading away;
Scraping the bottom of the barrel,
Hoping to make it through the day.

_____

I don’t destroy people.
If I did,
It would be evil.
Broken, shattered pieces.
Little would be left;
Like Latin America,
After they met measles.

I could sling these words for a living;
I want to be merciful, forgiving,
But I’m failing, constant sinning.
I try to keep the poison away from my tongue,
But I am surrounded by it,
Another Hamlet, about to become undone.

I want to be evil, sometimes;
A thunderstorm.
A harbinger of troubled times,
A bringer of ominous signs.
Amid these blurred lines,
Among these endlessly steep climbs,
I feel death’s clock as it chimes.

Amid bouts of disappointment and rancour,
Of venomous, virulent anger,
Life feels like an unresolved cliffhanger.
I want to be evil, sometimes;
But I’m not.
My train of thought leads me to think life should be lived,
Not bought.
Evil buys you pleasures,
Pleasures I’ve sought before.
There’s nothing to them,
Let them be gone.

Don’t give me reasons to lay this nuke at your doorstep.
Don’t **** with my inflamed, ******* cerebral cortex.
My mind is now the ocean,
And you are in its vortex.

I’ve experienced the fear of violence;
If fate holds us with a string,
Mine feels strained, like a violin’s.
I’ve felt the terror of speechless silence;
The pressure that life brings,
Like it’s 4:00am, and you’re still doing that assignment.
It shook me, but it didn’t break me.

I’ve read and studied about oppression;
There’s enough material to fill several skyscrapers,
Enough to slump anyone into a depression.
I’ve delved into accounts of sheer horror,
Enough to make your soul ache,
Stories of humans treated like fodder.
It’s heartbreaking; but, it didn’t break me.

Running rampant, unaccountable and irresponsible;
Stunning examples of corruption.
Criminals in command, hiding behind uniformed men,
Trapped in a den of thieves hiding behind constables.
You try every day; but, you won’t break me.

I’ve faced scrutiny and bigotry;
I call for mutiny, **** pleasantry.
I’ve seen hatred, and I’ve felt it;
If hate is a poisoned dagger,
It seeped through the hilt as I held it.
I’ve glared angrily at my own reflection;
I’ve put my brain through trauma,
And my soul died a bit from all the dejection.
I’ve come close, but I am not broken.

Every day is laborious;
It has to be in this world,
One that’s far from meritorious.
It would be so in a free world as well,
Except for the fact that your labour wouldn’t feel like hell,
Mostly because you will toil for a fair life for all,
And the future would be glorious.
It’s going to be the fight of our lives.
But it will not break me.

Traffic, an artless moment for us all.
Static, unmoving; this is our downfall.
Manic, and frantic, in panic, anxious;
A nation that thrives on the unsanctioned.

Softly, we slip away, as the sun shines;
It’s time to make hay, ‘fore the planet dies.
Absorb the grey decay, smoke in our skies;
This ain’t a game, we don’t have several tries.

From the office, to your house, to the bar.
Fall in deep love, find a spouse, live on par;
Get a job, pay your taxes, buy a car.
Adhere to templates, forget who you are.

Don’t think about your disappearing rights.
Elected racketeering, sleepless nights,
Running on fumes, there’s one too many fights.
How we’ve fallen from those divine, sublime heights.
Angrier, sadder than we’ve ever been.
Top-tier madness, hating coloured skin.
Unforgiving badlands, dealt some bad hands;
No going to heaven, they won’t let us in.

Slowly slipping away, like time itself.
Pretending we are fine, we don’t need help.
You can almost feel your soul fragmenting.
The cries of your inner child, who died lamenting;
Stifle them.
Suffocate them.
Placate them.
This is our life; there is no happy ending.

“Maybe, if you slipped and fell here...”
“Shut up. I don’t want to hear it.”
I walked on, one foot, then the other;
I killed the voice, left it smothered.

“You can get back up as much as you want.
I will come back, with a readied assault.”
“Get out of my head, you ******* psychopath.”
I left the spot I liked, off the beaten path.

As I walked, the dialogue quietened;
Guard down, senses still alert and heightened.
This calm scene is too serene,
And that’s got me frightened.
Permanently damaged, like a collapsed cliff side.
Crumbling down, dead on the inside.

“Aha, I’ve got you now, you weakling of a specimen.
I am your lord now, and misery’s your regimen.”
“I. SAID. I. WON’T. HEAR. IT.”
**** me, this is it, I can’t bear it;
I’m trying to run but my legs are giving out,
I’m trying to scream and shout but there’s no air,
Lungs are burning, blood’s getting sapped,
Can’t do anything, I’m completely trapped.

The only one who’s always there;
The voice from the void speaks viciously,
It whispers that I’m beyond repair.
Oh mother, where have I gone so wrong?
Oh father, why couldn’t I be strong?
Oh brother, why’d we never talk?
Like I was cheese, and he was chalk.

“Nobody will ever read this.
You can put your pen away.”
“Maybe they won’t read it;
But I’ll be ****** if I don’t write it.”
When you find this poem,
Or read it, or hear it from me,
Know that I died a dyed-in-the-wool anarchist,
Know that I died wanting to be free.

I clung to my past,
Glimpsed awkwardly towards the future.
I looked at the present,
Stitched together by sutures.
I can see why a few of us are scared;
Many more than a few.
Hoping to weather the apocalypse,
And watch it with a view.

“I’m done. Last straw, that’s it.
I don’t even want to wake up tomorrow.
You ******* ruined me.”
“No. I just point out the sorrow.
Nobody gives a **** about you;
Stop waiting for something to come through.
It won’t”.
“Not with you in charge, you sick ****.”

I ran out of kind-hearted dialogue a long time ago -
When I speak to myself,
I feel like there’s nothing good for me to find or show.
It’s just the voice from the void,
A conversation I wish I could avoid.

“Take me away.
I don’t want to see another day.
I’m done. **** me.”
“No, you must do it yourself.
Grab the knife, take your life.
Do it swiftly and you’ll die quickly,
If you do it right.”